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Janet Francoeur is a painter, a tile maker, a wanna be writer, an ok photographer, a gardener, she has wanderlust and not enough time to do everything she wants to do! Jan, as she likes to be called, has been a professional artist her entire adult life. She started with drawing in pencil, then ink, then watercolor, clay and now oil and mosaic. For 25 years she did house portraits in ink and for the past 15 years she also does them in watercolor. Jan and her husband Michael moved to New Bern, North Carolina in 1989 from Aspen, Colorado, where they had lived for 6 years. They were both born and raised in southern Michigan not far from Ann Arbor.

I recently switched my blog from blogger to wordpress – and you might ask why blog at all? When I owned Carolina Creations it was to keep customers informed of our upcoming events, what our artists were creating, what I was doing with my art, and I threw in some personal things as well. I […]

Of all the beautiful places we visited in the Netherlands and Belgium, Bruges was my favorite. Belgium was never on my radar but I think I will have to return. I loved the scale of Bruges and it has lots of canals and old architecture. The first fortifications were built in the 1st century BC, […]

I loved all the 26 years at Carolina Creations but am also loving having more time to travel and do my artwork. The two – travel and artwork – go together – although I seldom do artwork when I’m on the road because I want to spend the time seeing everything I can possibly see. […]

Key West post Irma …. There are a few empty shops on Duval, which you usually don’t see…there are some signs “closed for repairs from hurricane damage”….and a lot of the shade is gone… but Key West is every bit as beautiful as ever. My friend Deb met me there and we stayed at the […]

Just before I left Apalachicola I found this mermaid carved out of a cypress trunk, I love it! It’s in the Botanical Garden adjacent to the Orman House. On my way south I made a few stops…. First was the bottle house in Carabelle. Then I visited with friends in North Ft. Myers. We visited […]

I just spent 4 weeks on “the forgotten coast”. It reminded me of the keys 35 years ago. Relaxing, low key, quiet. We were told it’s busier in the summer but for us right now it was perfect. I’ve only ever driven through the Florida Panhandle once and that was in 1988 when we left […]

My sister and I just got back from a cruise, the highlight was Havana. It was overcast while we were there so my photos aren’t as bright as I would like them to be. We learned a lot about the country, the people were very friendly and caring. And like us, they don’t always agree […]

One day (years ago) a customer asked me to put names on a platter for a wedding, that was just the start! Since them I’ve done hundreds of churches with names and dates on tiles and platters… houses… baby sets… new bern scenes on things… special pieces given to visiting dignitaries…. back splash…. […]

I’m often asked to do commemorative pieces to be given as gifts for retirements, birthdays, weddings, etc. The piece I’m showing here was for someone whose career lasted over 30 years and she was involved in many of the projects that have shaped the way our downtown looks today. First we started with a list […]